As we near the opening of the curtain on CES® 2016, we are prepared for the multitude of TVs, automotive technology, audio systems and more tech that has long been featured on innovation’s greatest stage.

But there is more, much more.

It only took a glimpse behind the curtain at CES Unveiled to make that clear.

Also clear is that we are going to encounter many of the smarthome systems, connected health devices, fitness tech gear and more that have been filling increasingly more square footage the last few years.

You’re going to read much about those areas of technology as CES unfolds in the coming days, some of it here at Senior Care Corner®.

What we also noted in our CES previews and saw reinforced at Unveiled, are three quieter trends about which you’ll likely read less but may have as much impact – or more – on the lives of seniors and family caregivers as the more highly publicized trends.

Sleep improvement

Pain relief

Making technology easier to use

We thought we would start our coverage of CES 2016 by discussing those trends.

Innovations for Sleep Improvement

Many seniors report increasing problems getting a good night sleep as they age, making them candidates for innovations that can help them sleep better.

Seniors increasingly use sleep aides to help them get to sleep and stay asleep which have negative impacts on their safety. Getting up in the middle of the night and falling is a real concern for seniors who rely on sleep aides. Having technological alternates could prevent injuries in our senior loved ones.

It’s for that reason we have noted and reported on the many devices and apps that monitor our sleep.

What we have been waiting to see, though, were innovations that go beyond monitoring sleep to help improve it.

We did not expect to see traditional mattress companies on the CES exhibitor roster. Then again, what we saw them offering were non-traditional sleep solutions.

There were also glimpses of a number of devices intended to help users get a better night sleep. We intend to learn more about some of those over the course of CES and let you know what we find.

Pain Relieving Innovations

Chronic pain plagues many of our senior loved ones, robbing many of their ability to live their lives as they want. Solving their pain issues could give them back their lives, which is something family caregivers strive to achieve.

Claims of being able to reduce or even eliminate pain have teased us for generations, of course, so we are not going to be quick to report one or more of the innovations we encounter this week will do the trick.

Then again, the glimpses we got at CES Unveiled were not of products claiming to be cure-alls but have very specific applications and benefits.

That leaves us optimistic there will more on which to report when we get a closer look.

Innovations That Make Technology Easier to Use

Technology in many shapes and forms is providing us great benefits, with promise of much more to come.

While beneficial, technology can lead us down a complicated path to earn those benefits – or at least seems to be complicated.

That complication, whether real or just perceived, can provide justification for our senior loved ones to shy away from or even resist the innovations that can significantly improve their lives.

It makes us happy, then, to see a number examples of innovation intended to make technology easier to use, not just for seniors but everyone.

We are seeing that simplification in such obvious things as being able to use a single mobile app for many functions in the home rather than separate apps for each.

Some may be even more useful but maybe less obvious. An example of this is something in the works we discussed with one exhibitor that would make it straightforward to work with our mobile devices through our PCs.

That would make it easier, for example, to move photos and other files off the mobile devices that have become our primary cameras, something we have heard from many (not just seniors) is needed.

This is not to say we expect all the innovations encountered at CES will make technology easier to use.

No, some of the glimpses we saw at CES Unveiled, as in past CES gatherings, look like they will complicate our lives – not always with obvious benefit. But then, many innovations without obvious benefit turn out to be indispensable.

How many people realized, ten years ago, smartphones would become central to our lives and homes?

Many More Stories at CES 2016

We’ve only scratched the surface of we expect to see and learn as we get through as much as we can of the 2.4 million square feet of exhibits and hours of conference sessions.

Falling short of covering all CES 2016 has to offer is a given.

Your Senior Care Corner team has poured through the exhibitor list, conference program, and dozens of interview requests to focus on the topics we think will be of greatest interest to seniors and their family caregivers.

We hope you’ll check back over the next several days for our reports on what we find.